EVLN: CEO Mary Barra Tells GM Employees To Embrace Reform Or GTFO

EVLN: CEO Mary Barra Tells GM Employees To Embrace Reform Or GTFO

'We'll either change the people or we'll change people' ...

% Perhaps later after the smoke clears, GM getting a 'Rosie' CEO might 'get-the-job-done' when it comes to a purpose-built EV, meanwhile they still are banking on the Volt pih ( = less effort, still need replacement ice-parts, etc. %

This is The Morning Shift, our one-stop daily roundup of all the auto news that's actually important — all in one place every weekday morning. Or, you could spend all day waiting for other sites to parse it out to you one story at a time. Isn't your time more important?

1st Gear: "We'll either change the people or we'll change the people"

Tough talk from Mary Barra this week as she tries to convince people at the company that, despite years of saying they're going to change and then conspicuously not changing that... this time they're going to change and then actually stay changed.

This info we get from a roundtable discussion she had with reporters, brought to you by David Shepardson:

In mid-September, Barra met with the company's top 300 global executives at a warehouse in Detroit and pressed the need for reform.

She sent a tough message: Executives shouldn't stay at the automaker if they aren't in agreement with her plans to reform GM.

"If you don't believe in this plan, then you clearly have other things you could do. And please do so, because the task is hard enough if we all are aligned — and if we're not, it will be even more difficult," Barra said. "If you believe there is a different strategy, there's probably some company you can go work at and execute what you think is right. ... The conversation's not even hard, because why would you want to be here if you don't believe in where we're headed or you don't believe we're taking the right steps?"

(...)

"You are not really being nice if you don't say the truth in the meeting and you say it behind someone's back later. I think we just have to get candid," Barra said, saying she wants employees to be accountable and drive for results. "This is not a company of best efforts. It's got to be a company, if you say you are going to do something, get it done."

Totally. It's hard to say if she's doing all the right things, but I think Barra is finally saying the right things. Change is slow, change is hard, and I'm more inclined than ever to give GM a chance. We've seen Toyota internalize a lot of their own shortcomings and start to repair them and GM seems like they want to be next.

“There still is extremely high demand for the car,” a Tesla spokeswoman said, declining to confirm WardsAuto’s data. The auto maker has said it needed to divert some production from its Fremont, Calif., factory to Asia as it ramped up sales in China in April.

Is this really terrible news? I mean, at some point demand for such an expensive product has to level off and people are looking forward to the Model X and Model 3.

DETROIT — (WWJ) After a year of playing defense with record recalls and four appearances before congress, GM CEO Mary Barra wants her company to start taking the offensive.

“I want it understood that they day of GM being a polite competitor is over,” said Barra, in a speech to the Detroit Economic Club.

“We will be ethical and demonstrate integrity in everything we do. But, we will be tough, unrelenting competitors.”

This is the latest step in Barra’s efforts to shake up a General Motors culture that has been accused of being afraid of taking risks, and more interested in passing the blame than taking responsibility ...

There have been times in the past, Barra says, when GM hasn’t taken the offensive, because it wasn’t in the company’s culture to do so.

“We need to be a fierce competitor, and I think that’s a positive thing.”

In her speech, and a question session afterwards, Barra did not give specific details of a new $300 million investment in Michigan facilities, but did say that the next generation Chevrolet Volt [pih] will have more power and a longer range.

“The scorecard from the first generation of Volt is good, but it’s not everything we wanted,” she said. “But, we have accomplished a great deal, we have learned a great amount, including that breakthrough technology doesn’t always advance in a straight line.”

The next generation Volt will be introduced at January’s North American International Auto Show. It will be built at GM’s Detroit Hamtramk plant, with production of the electric motor moved from Mexico to GM’s Warren Transmission Plant, just outside Detroit.

In an advance text of the speech, Barra admitted that sales of the first generation Volt haven’t been where GM wanted them to be. But that reference was omitted from the remarks she actually gave.

Lower gasoline prices have slowed sales of hybrids and electrified vehicles this year. But, Barra feels there will be interest an an all new Volt, especially among younger buyers.

For journalists, it’s the story that keeps on giving ...
In January of this year, GM took the bold step of appointing Mary Barra to be the first female CEO of a major auto maker.

Nothing could be more tailor-made for a global PR/marketing coup than to have a woman break through the steel ceiling of Detroit and take her seat in what had been one of the most fiercely guarded men’s clubs in the world.

For an ailing corporate giant saved from extinction only by a presidential pardon, a new breed of leader, a fresh face, a different way of viewing the world–that could be just the brand of adrenaline GM needed.

Instead, it’s turned out to be the General Motors of the past, only with its product quality, cultural defects and raging scandals now on steroids. The question is, was this the CEO’s fault or the marketing team’s?

Both clearly share blame and the buck does stop at Barra’s enormous desk, but it is my contention that marketing blew it big time. Here’s why:

It was their responsibility to know that there were dark secrets brewing in the bureaucracy ...